


Five Times Sarah Left Jack And One Time She Didn't

by MerryDew (Honey_Dew_Mellon)



Series: Musicals; A Star Wars AU [1]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Minor Character Death Mentioned, Multi, Polyamory, Space AU, mostly just the main three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 10:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11011554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honey_Dew_Mellon/pseuds/MerryDew
Summary: The progress of how Jack and Sarah developed their relationship and how that relationship extended to include Katherine. Set in the Star Wars universe but no prior knowledge of Star Wars needed.





	1. First Time Sarah Left Jack

Sarah woke up completely immediately as she always did. The only unusual thing about this morning was the body lying beside her and the breaths that raised goosebumps on her neck. She had expected to wake with Jack’s arms wrapped around her waist, in her experience flyboys like him where always clingy. However his hands weren’t on her and when she slid carefully off the bed and to her feet he didn’t move at all.

She didn’t know if he was a heavy sleeper but she was trained to move silently and she didn’t wake him as she dressed. She remembered in vivid detail where her clothes had ended up the night before and she found them all easily. She didn’t need a light to make sure that she got all her buttons, buckles and zippers, another part of her training.

Part of her wondered what would happen if she stuck around. While she hadn’t been planning to spend the night with Jack she couldn’t say that she regretted it. He might have the attitude and foolish pride of a resistance operative but he lacked the bad boy projection and sheer arrogance of Spot Colon. In short he was the things that she liked in her partners without the obvious drawbacks that had stopped her from becoming involved with one her fellow operatives before now.

Still she knew better than to do more than entertain the idea. Jack was certainly the type who would brag about her to his squadron mates and she didn’t want to be caught by one of them leaving his room. She liked pilots, she really did, but while their attitude attracted her to them it also somehow always filled her with regret in the morning. That was why she needed to leave right now, her internal clock always woke her up early so that she could work out before any of the boys occupied the training rooms but right now it would get her out of this wing of the base before any of the Newsies or Brooklyns woke up.

It was probable that Jack’s neighbours already knew that he’d hooked up with someone. She hadn’t really felt the need to be quiet last night, neither of them had, and she knew exactly how thin that the walls where in this base. Neither the smugglers who had previously owned the base nor the resistance unit that had taken it over had the funds needed to make the walls any thicker than was load bearing and only the outside walls and air locks needs to hold out vacuum. The walls in the rooms where her team slept certainly weren’t thick enough to keep any sound from leaking to at least the neighbouring rooms if not the entire hallway.

She carefully slipped the door opened, Jack had it set up so it would only need to be unlocked if one was on the outside so she could leave without making a sound. Once she closed the door behind her she pulled on her boots. She had just come back from a debriefing after her undercover assignment when she’d run into Jack and the only part of her outfit that she had managed to change into regulation uniform had been her boats because her heels had been uncomfortable.

As she had expected all the other doors in the hallway where closed and remained that way as she made her way out of the pilot’s barracks. She didn’t see another person until she was in the section of the base that the operatives had co-opted into their own base of classified operations. 

Pie Eater almost seemed to be waiting for her. The old Zankrei was sitting in one of the chairs at the small kitchen counter and he leaned back as she approached. She could feel the other operative’s gaze deconstructing every minute detail of her appearance and she braced herself against the impending shiver. Her mentor had taught her that the only time she needed to have her mask up was when she was on the job, otherwise she risked falling apart. Yet being around Pie Eater made her wish that she could have her mask on at all times because he never seemed to stop being an operative. Even his real name was so classified that he couldn’t use it and his pale violet eyes always seemed to be reading people. It was like he wasn’t capable of turning it off anymore.

“Caf?” He spun his chair back around to the counter without waiting for her response and she noticed that there was just enough left in the pot for him to poor a second cup. She almost felt like she was intruding on him meeting with someone else except she knew that wasn’t the case.

Pie Eater had made it explicitly clear that he preferred to be alone from the moment that they got him to this base. Sarah’s team had been sent in to infiltrate the imperial prison where he had been held with the Newsies and Brooklyns serving as their extradition. He had been their objective, a prisoner that needed rescuing and then after the debriefing had ended he had been made into the head of the operatives assigned to this base. They had tried to get to know them but he had rebuffed them, said that too many people he’d known had died for him to make new friends. All she knew about him was that he was old enough to have been a rebellion operative and had been imprisoned before the New Republic had become an official government. 

She’d just climbed onto the seat beside him when he spoke again. “So who was it?” She stared at him; not in surprise, no if anyone was going to pick up on the fact that she had hooked up last night she would expect it to be him, but rather in indecision. She didn’t know that she wanted to tell him, the thing between her and Jack felt like it could maybe be something more than a one night stand but she wasn’t sure yet. If it became the newest piece of base gossip then she didn’t see it having much of a chance of becoming anything. Plus there was one of the basic rules that her mentor had drilled into her head about being an operative; no relationships.

“No answer so you think it could be serious.” Evidently she didn’t need to speak for him to get his answer. He pushed her cup of caf over to her and she felt him examine her again. “Is it Jake?” The name sounded pulled out of the air at random but she recognised the confidence in his voice. It was an interrogation technique that her mentor had taught him. When you wanted someone to admit to something you just needed to sound confident enough when you said the wrong thing and most people would correct you purely on instinct. Plus the name of the Brooklyn’s quarter master and excuetive officer was similar enough to Jack’s that it would have provoked a response had she not been expecting this from him. 

Pie Eater knew that she hadn’t slept with Jake. Still she didn’t want to give him the pleasure of falling for the trick. She didn’t even know why he was integrating her, it was hardly against the rules for people who worked together to be in relationships or just sleeping together. Many of the Newsies and Brookyns were sleeping with other people in their own units. While it wasn’t encourage for undercover operatives to form relationships it was by no means banned, their training didn’t make them immune to emotions. It was designed to do so but everyone knew that it rarely if ever actually succeeded. 

She went to take a sip of her caf which was apparently the sign that he was waiting for. “No, it can’t be Jake. He’s not your type. It’s Jack isn’t it.” As she’d suspected he didn’t need her to answer the question, he’d known who it was the entire time. “Now I have to ask, just so I can say that I did. Do you have any reason to think that your relationship with him will compromise you in any way?” That was what she had been expecting. Pie Eater was her boss and if she screwed up on an assignment because of something that had happened on his watch he’d be blamed. He was just trying to make sure that he had his bases covered. She just wished that the implication that she couldn’t handle herself didn’t sting quite so much.

“No. it was just a one night stand. I have not been compromised in any form.” The caf was just a little too bitter for her taste and she slide open a draw between them to pull out a spoon and a box of sweetener. Sarah noticed Pie Eater grimace out of the corner of her eye as she heaped three generous spoonsful of the sweetener into her caf. He often advocated that nothing should ever be added to caf and that to do so should be a crime.

Still he nodded, or at least nodded before he said something that she hadn’t expected to hear from him. “Don’t discard the idea of having a personal life. With the things we do it’s hard to find people who are willing to accept us. Jack seems like the type of guy who could do that.” The piece of advice threw her into confusion. It was odd, especially coming from Pie Eater. He offered no elaboration on it, instead he grabbed his mug and left the area before she could even process what he had said.


	2. Second Time Sarah Left Jack

Insistent vibrations against the inside of her wrist woke Sarah up even early than she normally would have. She bit down on the groan in her throat as she brought the coms unit on her wrist into her line of sight and saw the little screen lit up with a summons calling her out to a briefing. The screen was at its dimmest setting and still it seemed unreasonably light in the darkness of Jack’s sleeping quarters. Thankfully the pilot was a relatively deep sleeper because he didn’t even shift away from the glow as she read the message.

It didn’t make sense to her that she would be called in to do another job so soon. She had only come in from the debriefings after her last mission three days ago and usually Pie Eater tried to give her at least a week to decompress and prepare for her next assignment. She supposed this was confirmation that the resistance was preparing for a big action, the missions had been coming across her desk quickly recently and there had been rumours that the leadership had an engagement with the empire in mind. Something bigger than the little raids that would only cause a minor interference with the empire’s operations and was hardly noticeable on a larger scale.

She hauled herself slowly to her feet, she still had bruises from her last mission. The idea had been to just go into imperial territory and extract an asset there that she had turned just a little under two standard years ago. The man she’d turned had been providing them with solid intel for the entire time and as it turned out his intel had been a little bit too good. His last communications had been in a code she’s specifically given to him for use in case he thought that he had been compromised. 

The extraction had gone according to plan, to the point where she had started to doubt that her asset had actually been compromised, but they’d been ambushed trying to leave the planet. The ambushers were known bounty hunters who worked on imperial contracts all the time, she’d run into them in the past so she had known to go back to the surface. The Delancey brothers where known to be rough but there was one other key thing about their MO. They were always hired to bring back targets alive and they almost always succeeded in doing so. That being the case there was too good a chance that she and her asset would have been killed by accident should they exit atmosphere.

The bruises had come in when she’d lead the Delanceys around for as long as she could and then engaged them. She knew that they would never give up until they had captured both her and her asset so she had been forced to disable them. To do so she had needed to lay a false trail in order to separate them and then take them out one at a time. Morris had gone down pretty quickly, she’d gone after him first and ambushed him successfully but Oscar had proven to be a surprisingly good tracker. Just as she’d taken his brother down he had jumped her from behind and she had only been able to free her back up blaster from its holster to fire a stun shot after a prolonged fight. Her injuries had been not been severe enough to warrant immersion in a bacta tank so they’d been left to heal naturally. 

Jack had been impossibly sweet about them. It had never occurred to her how many minor injuries that pilots picked up while in the cockpit but once he’d seen her bruises he’d stopped what they were doing and pulled a jar of bacta cream out of his drawer. He’d then rubbed in carefully into every inch of her bruised skin and after only three days even she could tell that the cream had rapidly sped up the healing process. Her every move only hurt a little bit now and most of the bruises had faded away to the point of near invisibility. Sarah tried to tell herself that the only reason that she regretted having to leave with no time to wake Jack was because of the bacta cream. She could just make him out as her eyes adjusted to the dark, he slept stretched out on his back with his face twisted towards her. As she paused for a moment just looking at him his features tensed and he rolled over towards the wall with a quiet grunt. 

One thing that she had learned during… whatever their relationship actually was that he had nightmares. They slept together almost every night that they were both in base but neither of them ever brought up the dangerous question of what they were. That particular uncertainty not withstanding there was one thing that she did know and that was that Jack had nightmares. He didn’t scream which was a relief because she would have stopped sleeping with him immediately if that had been the case. She was too easy to wake to deal with someone who screamed in their sleep.

No Jack’s nightmares were much quieter than that. The first few nights she didn’t think that they had occurred, they’d fallen asleep together and she’d woken up peacefully beside him. However since she often slipped in and out of the room while he was still asleep and she had started to notice little things. He would start getting twitchy shortly after she left the bed and would mutter. She could never make out what he was saying but the sounds seemed distressed. Still they were never enough to make her stay and try to relax him; that would be too close to admitting that this was something real for either of them. 

She finished buttoning up her shirt and then slipped out of the room as he let out a whimper, the sound did not have any impact on her. It certainly didn’t make her pause for just a heartbeat before she let the door slide closed behind her and it definitely didn’t make her consider the idea of being just a few minutes late for the meeting. 

She’d just stepped away from the door and was on her way to the briefing room when Crutchie emerged from the neighbouring room. She still didn’t understand exactly the pilot just accepted the nickname. Jack had explained that it came from a time in when they had been training and the blond had ended up needing to use a crutch for several months but he didn’t even have a limp now. His real name was Tim, an easy one syllable name that had no need of nicknames and still he let everyone call him Crutchie.

He was always ruffled looking but as he braced himself in the door way and peered at her his hair seemed to stick straight up. He looked like he had just woken up and considering the hour that was probably the case. Still Sarah found herself surprised when he asked her a question in what she recognized as the Kiytanian. His file listed him as fluent in the language but until now she had never heard him speak it.

“Does Jack know you’re leaving?” She assumed that he was repeating himself in basic now. She’d been encouraged to learn other languages and had done so but Kiytanian was a dead language and therefore not of much use to her. The near humans that it belonged to lived in the outer rim in a territory controlled by an early ally of the empire. Most Kiytan who lived outside of their home world’s solar system spoke basic.

He slumped patiently in the door frame as she scrambled for a response but she couldn’t tell if the action was to mock her or just his normal relaxed stance. She had never seen Crutchie in an energized state, Jack claimed that the only time he’d ever seen the man anything other than completely calm was after a dog fight and personal experience lead her to believe him. Still the stance made her thoughts rushed and she eventually held up her wrist to point at the coms unit. “I’ve been called in for a briefing and-“

“And you didn’t want to wake him.” The knowing nod that he gave certainly seemed mocking but once again she couldn’t tell. Crutchie was irritatingly hard to get a read on most of the time and when he looked this rumpled it was almost impossible. “I assume that you didn’t leave a note so I’ll just let him know that you had to take off again.” 

Now she was certain that he was mocking her, still she decided to ignore it for the moment and just take what he said at face value. “Thanks.” She should probably tell him to tell Jack that she would be in touch but there wasn’t much of a point. Crutchie would know it for a lie and if he relayed it to Jack then so would he. If she was being called to a briefing this early then there was probably a job for her which meant that she would have to stop being Sarah Jacobs and immerse herself into her new cover identity. That would mean that she would only have contact with her handler and to make sure she didn’t get compromised that would have to be at a minimum. She probably wouldn’t be back in contact with Jack until she was back on the station. 

That was why there couldn’t be anything real between them, it just wasn’t possible. While she knew that being an agent of the resistance was nothing like being an agent of the rebellion in those early days that didn’t mean it was better. No matter the time or who one was working for it was always the same story for operatives like her and the rules to cope where simple too. 

* 1\. Never form a long lasting romantic attraction to someone as yourself because every time you go undercover you might have to sleep with someone to complete your mission and you can’t afford to be hesitant.  

* 2\. Never promise that you will see someone again because your next assignment could last the rest of your life and you might never go back to yourself.  

* 3\. Never deny yourself anything when you are yourself because you don’t know who you’re going to be next and for how long you must be that person.  

* 4\. Never make a promise to a source about extradition because nothing is predicable.  

* 5\. Only reveal yourself to your source and only if you absolutely must. 

Denton had taught her those rules and she had said that the third one seemed like it was in direct conflict with the first one which had made him laugh before he gave her a level look and promised her that they were. She thought that she might finally understand what he meant by that or at the very least was closer to understanding what he’d meant now. Perhaps if she ever saw him again she’d ask him to clarify or ask him if she was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kiytan are a near human race. They look like humans but as they age they develop dark markings across the skin.  
> For the record Crutchie is fully human but was adopted by a Kiytan couple. They taught him to speak the language. Crutchie's real name is Tim Lorrac.


	3. Third Time Sarah Left Jack

Sarah woke up a second time when Jack carefully slipped back to get off the end of the bed. The pilot was moving as quietly as he could and while she appreciated the effort he was no operative. He didn’t quite have the same light footed grace that came with the territory and his lanky frame was no help to stealth. Before he could get off the bed she reached out and grabbed his arm, she’d woken at her usual hour but had decided to stay because for once she wasn’t going to be sent out on another mission and she had actually been comfortable in his bed. She knew that the story was the same for Jack and since this was his room, his bed she had to wonder where he was going.

“Where you goin’ Jacky?” she was surprised by how sleep rough her voice sounded, she’d been asleep longer than usual and her vocal cords hadn’t adjusted to it. From the smile that he gave her it hadn’t escaped his notice either and he slipped back up the bed to flop beside her.

He leaned in for a kiss and despite her internal voice screaming that she needed to get up and bolt because this was wrong, too close to a real relationship she prolonged the kiss. While their lips where touching she could ignore her mind racing and the mantra beating in her skull. _Rule 1… Rule 1… Rule 1._ She knew she was on the edge of breaking it with Jack, she didn’t need her own brain to be reminding her of the fact every second. Pie Eater already did that whenever he caught her going back in her room to change into workout clothes every morning.

The Zankrei asked her if she was compromised every time and every time she said that she wasn’t. Then he reminded her that Jack was a good guy. She still didn’t understand why he did both things, logically it was in Pie Eater’s best interest that she stop sleeping with Jack. If she could recognize that she was too close to him then her handler was capable of doing the same thing but he still accepted it when she said that she wasn’t compromised and didn’t question her on it at all.

Eventually he pulled back and with some reluctance she let her thoughts creep back in. “I have to get a shower.” He moved carefully over her to scramble out of bed and she watched him head towards the connected door to the bathroom that connected his room to Crutchie’s. “You can join me if you want.” 

“Think I might just stay here a while.” She stretched out in the bed to prove her point and he smiled. The bed had not been intended to be comfortable and with two people sleeping there it tended to be a little bit cramped. Still it wasn’t like Jack could just order another bed, he would need to get a doctor’s note saying that he needed it for medical reasons and even then he’d have to convince the Newsie quarter master. She didn’t think that Crutchie would be willing to do that, especially since the other man also knew that unless she was spending the night Jack slept in the hanger. “I never get to sleep in.”

He laughed at that and she knew what he was going to say before the words even left his lips “And whose fault is that?” it was hers and she knew that. No one made her get up insanely early to work out and do paper work. No one held a blaster to her head and forced her to ensure that her sleep schedule was perfect in its restriction of eight hours every night but she did it anyway. If she had a strict schedule even for her downtime it wold be hard for her to be unprepared when a mission came up. Still she didn’t answer, opting instead to close her eyes and listen as Jack headed into the refresher.

Much to her own disappointment she was only content to lie in bed for a few minutes, she heard the sound of water running as he got into the shower and tried to focus only on that. But the noise didn’t work as a distraction for long and the mantra of _Rule 1… Rule 1…. Rule 1_ didn’t stop repeating in her skull just because she wanted it to. If she stayed in bed then she would have to face the fact that she was breaking that rule and she wasn’t ready to do that. Not yet, not when she still didn’t know how Jack felt because she never stuck around long enough to have that conversation.

Sarah was up and dressed within five minutes. In a rare change of pace she didn’t have to worry too much about being quiet, Jack liked high water pressure and as a result it was quite difficult to hear anything over the sound of water. She had learned from personal experience when she hadn’t head Crutchie knocking on the other refresher door and asking how much long she would be taking over their refresher for over twenty minutes. This time she even pulled on her boots before she snuck out the door to head to her room.  
By some miracle she didn’t run into any of the other Newsies. This was obviously the time at which most pilots started to wake because as she slipped down the hall she could hear people in some of the rooms but no one seemed quite ready to leave yet. She even heard a few of them calling out quick questions to people in neighbouring rooms. Not for the first time she was relieved that operatives where housed in a different section of barracks. It would be harder for her and Jack to pretend that the entire base didn’t know that they were sleeping together if she had to deal with both of their teams when she was slipping away every morning.


	4. Fourth Time Sarah Left Jack

Jack felt Sarah’s nails claw their way down his back and he let out a hiss against her lips, he was used to the scratches now but he still couldn’t help reacting to it. He wished that he could give as good as he got, his flight academy partners had learned that he gave hickeys regularly but she could need to go undercover at any moment and couldn’t have visible bruises. He could always ask her not to scratch him but honestly he didn’t mind. 

His lips where moving down the line of her neck, passing her collar bone to go further when the sound of buzzing and a shrill voice saying ‘pay me attention, pay me attention, pay me attention’ stopped him. She froze under him at the exact same moment and they both twisted to look down at the floor where his coms unit continued to go off. Before she could say anything he was scrambling to his feet and trying to collect his clothes.

“Who is that?” She stretched from the bed and grabbed the coms device, returning it to the bedside table. 

“Well I imagine its Weisel, he’s the one who hands out our mis-“

“No not who’s calling you. I know its Weisel. I meant whose voice is that?” She scrunched up her nose as she tried to mimic the shrill voice “Pay me attention… I’ve heard it someplace before, not sure where.”

If he had time he would have teased her about the uncertainty. She was never uncertain about anything, he thought that it probably came from being an operative and needing to know everything before making any choices but she took the trait to its extreme. She did such extensive research on anything one her of cover identities could need to know that she could answer almost any question on any subject. There was competition between almost everyone on the base as to who got to be on her team during any downtime trivia events.

“Honestly I don’t know, someone in the squadron keeps changing all our alarms to that. I think it might be Race because Spot tells me that the same thing keeps happening to the Brooklyns too. But he won’t admit to us that he’s doing it. It would be less annoying if even one person knew who the hell it was on the recording.” 

She laughed as he pulled on the sleeves of his flight suit to ensure that it wasn’t somehow tangled over his shoulders and he stared down at her in surprise. “It’s the tag line to an advertisement for a brand of speeder bikes on Coruscant. The owner says it in little video ads that play on big screens in a lot of the squares and it’s in posters to. The way that he says it is so annoying that it gets people’s attention and it’s become a joke in some cultures on the planet. But it’s done its job and his speeder sales have gone up.”

He stared at her in genuine shock, some advertisement on Coruscant was such a niche thing that it made no sense that she would be to just pluck that out of her head after hearing it for only a few moments. She took one look at him and laughed again. “I had a very brief assignment to extract an asset from Coruscant. Those ads had just become a subject of replica for graffiti artists and they were all over the place. There was even on one the outside of the safe house.”

Jack smiled and turned to go for the door. Before he could hit the panel to slide it open a thought occurred to him and he turned back to Sarah. “Hey, stick around here for when I get back. This mission can’t take too long and I’d love to get right back to what we were doing.” Honestly he’d love to just say screw it all and get back into bed with her now but he still had to do his job. He lead the Newsies and that meant that he couldn’t be late to a briefing for any reason, if he started showing up late then the others would take that as their cue to start slacking off as well.

“Sure, I’ll just stay here all day and ignore my job.” She chuckled and stretched out under the blankets. “I won’t just laze around your room waiting for you but you should find me when you get back so we can pick up right where we left off.” He knew that was as good as he would be getting from her, as close to a promise as she would ever give him so he took it as his cue to leave. 

When he got back they needed to have an actual conversation about what they were. He didn’t mind the routine that they had going now, they slept together more nights than not and since that had started his occasional nightmares had become non-existent. Yet he still had to recognize that if they kept just not talking about it then it was bound to go bad, in order for something to be maintained that something needed to be addressed.  


\--

  
It was four days before Jack stumbled back into his room and collapsed face down on his bed, three days – 36 standard hours of which had been spent in the cockpit – and then one day packed with debriefings. During those four days he had only managed to grab cat naps, a few hours while they travelled through hyperspace and a few minutes between each debriefing. He had actually had to stagger to his room with one arm around an equally unsteady Crutchie like he was wasted. Then again he was so tired that he honestly felt wasted.

He wasn’t sure what time it was the first time that he woke up but he, at the very least, had the presence of mind to scramble out of his flight suit and into a pair of loose fitting pyjama pants before returning to bed. This time he even had the thought to get under the blankets before he passed out. His last coherent thought being that he hoped that Sarah would stick around just a little while longer because he was in no state to even consider picking up where they had left off.

The next time that he woke up he actually felt like himself again, the exhaustion was not gone but it had faded back to a level that he was more accustomed to managing. With coherency returned to his thoughts he forced himself out of bed and got dressed in his civilian clothes with one goal in mind. He needed to locate Sarah before she left on another job and have an actual conversation. Failing the latter part he would be willing to just fall into bed with her again. Only four days apart and he already missed her a little bit. She was as close to him as any of his squadron and he didn’t have the benefit of always being assigned to do his missions with her.

There was no other movement in the wing as he made his way out to the common rooms, there were a number of places that he could think of just off of the top of his head. Yet he didn’t find any sign of Sarah in the weight room, the track, the bars (there where two, another product of the former occupants), or anywhere else that he knew she liked to spend time. It was with some trepidation that he realized he was going to have to go into the part of the base that was reserved for agents and operatives.

There was no rules against other people entering that part of the base. There had never been as much as the implication that other people where unwelcomed to come to that part of the base. There was however a natural degree of separation between special operatives and just run of the mill pilots and ground troops. The special operatives where assigned bigger jobs and couldn’t even discuss them with one another, that took a toll on a person and some of the operatives where odd people.

Jack had a particular reason for wanting to avoid the special operatives quarters. Both his parents had served the rebellion as special operatives and in the end his mother had died. When his father had come back he hadn’t been all present, his mind has always been wandering and he hadn’t been able to provide for much of anything. It wasn’t like he could go to see a therapist because the things that where bothering him where all classified and couldn’t be spoken off. He hadn’t been able to survive in civilian life and he hadn’t lived very long.

He could accept that being an operative had sucked the life out of his father and cost him everything. All he had to do was ensure that the same did not happen to him and did all that he could do to achieve the goal. He had actually been offered a position in special ops when he had graduated from flight training and turned it down. That sure had surprised the recruiter, evidently most people didn’t think to turn down offers. 

The moment that he stepped into the operative’s part of the base Pie Eater turned around from where he sat at a table. The moment that the Zankrei’s eyes fell on Jack he flipped over his data pad and stood, blocking him from heading further into the area.

“You’re looking for Sarah?” He didn’t even have the opportunity to nod before the older man continued talking. “She’s gone on assignment. Might not be returning for another four to five standard months. Is there some urgent message that you need to pass on to her?” His tone said that he already knew that there was no such message but at least this time he stopped speaking and gave him time to respond. 

“No there’s no message for her.” His mind was half frozen in surprised and he stumbled over his words. “Um, did she leave something for me? Just lying around here someplace? A recorded message of something?” 

He didn’t even know why he bothered to ask. Of course she wouldn’t have left him a message, there was no reason that she should have. They weren’t in a real relationship so it hardly mattered that they wouldn’t be seeing each other for several months. He’d been lying if he said that he didn’t miss her every time she vanished for extended periods of time but he had also accepted it. He’d had to otherwise she would have left him. Once, and he swore that it was just the once, he had been the just the littlest bit mopey when she’d gone and Crutchie had told her. Sarah had told him that if he didn’t pull himself together then she would be done with him.

He didn’t know how exactly pretending that he didn’t care when she was gone proved that their relationship was based only in sex. If anything, he thought, that the fact that he was willing to do so probably suggested that there was something more to his feelings at the very least. Still he was happy to play this relationship by her rules providing that it meant that it continued.

“No, she didn’t leave you a message. Did she say that she was going to?” Both the question and Pie Eater’s genuine sounding interest gave him pause. The latter more so than the former. There wasn’t a single good reason that he could think of for it to be there. In his experience there was no good reason that a supervisor would show any interest in the relationships of one of their subordinates. That interest almost always meant that they would apply pressure in order to end the relationship. Honestly Pie Eater would probably just have to ask Sarah once and she would end it. It would be fooling himself to say that he knew that he meant anything to her.

“No, no she didn’t say anything. I just thought that she might still be around here. Just wanted to meet up with her for drinks. Decompress a little bit”

It wasn’t until after he fumbled the words out that it occurred to him that she had never said that she would leave him a message if she had to leave. All she had said was that he should find her when he got back from the mission, not that she would be waiting around for him to actually find. Somehow it had slipped Jack’s mind that she would never make him a promise, she never guaranteed anything. Even if she said that she was going to do something it still wasn’t guaranteed that it would ever come to be.

“Perhaps you should go and decompress in your own room.” There seemed to be something else in Pie Eater’s voice as he stood and looked down at him. “You had a long mission and you haven’t been back on base for that long. You should get more rest, you need to be prepared for your next mission when it comes about.” He recognized that as a dismissal and without even thinking about it his feet carried him out of the operative’s area and back towards his chamber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I know technically Jack leaves Sarah first but then she vanishes on him.


	5. Fifth Time Sarah Leaves Jack

Despite its constant presence in her line of work Sarah was still not accustomed to anxiety and its weight on her. If her mentor was here then he would shake his head and chuckle before leaning on the rail beside her. He’d remind her that not becoming accustomed to anxiety was good, it would make her sharper in whatever it was that she needed to do. She just didn’t want to be sharper in what she needed to do next. She didn’t even want to do it but there wasn’t another option.

She heard Jack approaching before he got close, he walked with the heavy step of someone who had recently been wearing mag boots and it made the catwalk vibrate just slightly underneath her. He had been dealing with the repairs on the hull of a recently captured star destroyer. It wasn’t technically something that was within his job description but the base was understaffed and the only one to which the ship had been able to limp. The repairs had been quite extensive and required to help of all station personal. The only reason that she hadn’t been called on to help was because she was in debriefings explaining exactly how her team had ended up capturing a star destroyer when they were only assigned to free a half dozen political prisoners.

Since Jack was just as efficient at using a wielding tool to apply patches that would let the star destroyer go into hyperspace as anyone else and apparently more accustomed to working in zero g than others he had been busy for around eight hours. That had given her time to prepare herself for what had to be done and still she didn’t know that she was ready. 

The briefings that had occupied her time had not just been to cover the aftermath of the star destroyer incident. They had also been devoted to preparing her for her next mission, technically her latest mission she supposed. With what could only be described as a critical success on their last job her team had been selected as the resistance’s next recruitment team. That meant that they would all be going deep undercover with identities that would hold for the rest of their lives unless something extremely extraordinary occurred. Whatever and whoever she was told to become would be who she was for the rest of her life. 

She had been given two standard months to get her affairs in order, in some ways it was like managing her own funeral process. She had been told to start to cancel any accounts that she had under her real identity, even to come up with a fake death story that would be fed to anyone who wasn’t cleared to know where she had gone. Sarah herself had been surprised that when Pie Eater asked who she wanted as her secret keeper – someone outside of the mission who would know where she had gone just in case something went terribly wrong - she had said Jack. 

She didn’t know why the cocky pilot had been the first one to come to mind. Only four months ago she had gone out on a long term mission when she knew that he would come looking for her and not even given him word. Still Pie Eater had given her a smile, something unusual for him, and told her that she could let him know personally when she had said Jack. The only warning that he had given her was that Jack couldn’t know where she was going or who she was going to become. As her secret keeper all he would be allowed to know was that she was going undercover and that she would not be coming back out. It would become his job to deflect anyone who came looking for her and to build her a reasonable excuse to her existence. She probably wouldn’t be comfortable doing this if not for the fact that everyone in her life wouldn’t need the excuses, they would know where she had gone or be able to put it together.

“Hello lovely” When Jack spoke he was still standing at a fair distance. He was considerate of her instincts and knew better than to sneak up on her. The fact that he still thought that he could do so even though there was no finesse in his movements was cute. “Have to say didn’t think that you’d be bringing back a star destroyer when you returned.” Those words covered something, if she wasn’t trained to analyze and analyze again then she wouldn’t have caught it but she did. He hadn’t thought that she would be coming back, which was almost insulting. 

“Well I figured with the way that I left I ought to be bringing you a present of some sort.” As she spoke he moved to lean on the catwalk railing beside her. At their angle they could both see the patched haul of the star destroying through the atmosphere shields. There wasn’t the equipment on this base to properly patch it up so the normally sleek haul was full of out of place sharp angles that made the pointed shape into something almost unrecognizable. 

He chuckled “An entire star destroyer for me? You should tell Pie Eater that it’s a gift. Maybe he’ll let me be captain when it makes its way back to headquarters. Imagine everyone’s faces when they see that I’ve suddenly become the commander of a star destroyer, that’s one to rub in my old academy mates faces.” He turned around and leaned with his back against the railing so he could look at her with more ease. “It’s a touch banged up but that’s completely fine. What should we call it?”

Looking at him now, he was always at his most open when they were on the catwalks that lined the hanger, she wanted to do anything other than have the conversation that she was about to start. She wanted to drag him back to his quarters and spend the next day there, surely one of the other Newsies could be coaxed to deliver them food from the mess. What was stopping her from doing that? It would be so easy. Still it wasn’t that easy to turn her back on duty, in that much she was too akin to her parents. Even when the empire had told her father that he had to let them take the aliens from the planet he governed with no resistance he had still held to his guns. The price for her parent’s defiance had been their deaths. At least doing her duty would only cost herself her life and she would be getting a new one in return.

“We need to talk.” She didn’t know what she expected to see in his eyes after she said that but it certainly wasn’t leaping enthusiasm. He quickly seemed to reign in the emotion and adjusted his stance slightly so that he was leaning in just a little bit closer. It only then occurred to her what talk that he thought that she wanted to have and she wished that it was that one. She’d actually rather be having a conversation about how their relationship could progress into the future than one that was going to bring it to a sudden halt.  
He cocked his head and seemed to be waiting for her to continue but her mind seemed to have hit a snag because it couldn’t find the words that she needed. Actually it didn’t want to find the words that she needed because she wanted things both ways, she wanted to try to have a real relationship and to continue climbing the ranks of the resistance operatives. But she knew that it couldn’t be like that and she would take the certain thing – her undercover position- over the uncertainty of their relationship going forwards. 

“Well? I’m happy to just stand here looking at you but you said that you wanted to talk. So am I supposed to start or do you have a theme in mind for this conversation?” His drawled words kick started her thought process and she blurted out her next words without any of the finesse that she had put into practicing this conversation. 

“I’m going undercover again.”

That did not have its intended effect. He looked confused and the emotion seemed to soak into his next words. “Well yeah, I figured. It’s your job and you seemed to love it. Besides.” He nodded towards the Star destroyer. “This should make the higher ups open their eyes and give you a real assignment, something massive.” He knew too much about how operatives where assigned things. Big successes and good performance meant bigger jobs, more dangerous jobs like the one that she had already been given.

“Yeah, yeah it already has.” His eyebrows shot up. “They have a deep cover identity already ready for me, I’m good to go.” He raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth but she shook her head. “No don’t interrupt me. I need to explain this to you. The job that they offered me isn’t a quick one, once I put everything in order I’m going undercover for the rest of my life. Since I’ve never been burned on a job and my picture hasn’t been shared around I was the perfect choice for their next long term undercover and I’ve already accepted.”

“Well shit Sarah.” He deflated against the railing and for a second her mind was flooded with the image of his weight just breaking it off. Of course that didn’t happen. The catwalk was designed to hold against star fighter fire, one pilot couldn’t break it if he tried to. “It’s nice to actually hear about it this time instead of having you just disappear out of my life but I have to ask. Should I expect Pie Eater to come and kill me in my sleep to keep this quiet?”

She chuckled at that before his facial expression revealed that he was serious. “I’m allowed to have a secret keeper. It’s encouraged actually. If anyone where to come looking for me they might not just accept the word of other operatives but a secret keeper is never an operative so their word seems trustworthy. No one will come to kill you because you’re another part of the plan.”

Her words wiped whatever emotion had caused him to collapse against the railing out of his in a second, she knew it had to be a mask like the one that she wore undercover because no one recovered from genuine emotion that quickly. He might not be an operative but his mask was as flawless as that of any professional as he leaned back. He stayed silent for a few moments and his mask was so good that she couldn’t even guess at what he was actually thinking. Doing this actually felt like an official op, she was manipulating him to get him to do what she need him to do and it was basically a sanctioned operation. Sarah decided that she needed to think of it like that, everything that could have been between them was in the past and now he was just another asset for her to use. Thinking of it like that felt better so she fixed it in her mind.

“Going undercover forever then, huh.” He looked over towards the star destroyer for a moment then chuckled. “And all you had to do to buy it was steal a star destroyer? Maybe I should tell the next operatives that get assigned to us that’s all they have to do in order to get a big mission. Could probably end up getting the resistance a completely new fleet if word about that got around.” When he looked back towards her there was a half-smile on his face and she realized that this time it actually was a joke, his mask truly was without flaw. With that ability to cover his emotions he should have been an operative himself. 

“No that’s going to have to stay classified.” She let herself chuckle but she couldn’t make it sound ligament so she dropped it. She couldn’t let herself put on a mask now, she was going to spend her life in a mask but until that happened she wasn’t going to put one on. She needed to let herself have a little bit of freedom before it vanished forever. “If every operative that we had went out to hijack a star destroyer in order to obtain a promotion then they might not limit themselves to those that the empire possess. We don’t want the Alliance to have even more reason to be angry with us never mind all the splinter factions who got their hands on some unaccounted for star destroyers. Besides I like to think that I’ve raised the standard not just set a new one.”

“What? So are you telling me that the next young operative looking for the promotion is going to steal an entire fleet?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That would be entirely impracticable. It would require most of our operatives to take control of that many ships and they’d be just as likely to go off to create their own faction instead of bring the fleet to us.”

Despite his mask, the only identifiable flaw being that none of his emotions got through so no matter what his expression was it still seemed bland, he laughed at that with her. But the humour didn’t stick to him for very long and soon he was silent and looking right at her. Sarah didn’t ask what was on his mind, she didn’t feel that she had the right to intrude any further on him at the moment. She was already asking him to give up on being with her and tell lies for the rest of his life about where she had gone. That was a lot to ask and she knew it. A little voice inside her said that the fact that she could see that and had still done it that meant that maybe she really didn’t feel anything for him but she ignored it. 

“Alright then.” His face remained disturbingly bland when he stopped laughing and she wished that he would drop the mask. She’d like to know how he was really feeling about this, she hadn’t been able to name the emotion before he hid it. “You’ve never talked about your family and anyone that you knew outside of the resistance. I should probably know who you are expecting me to lie to so that my story at least sounds convincing.”

Well at least one of them was keeping their mind on the task at hand. She supposed that it was only fair that once she had decided to give herself just a few days freedom before she became someone else that he would close down. “My brothers. There’s no one else who knows me outside of the resistance and most of the others wouldn’t come looking on my. Davey and Les might yet, they’re currently going through resistance pilots training though so you have time to get your story straight with Pie Eater.”

“Two brothers huh, if they ever do show up then should I be expecting them to be the protective sort or something else. If I have to lie to them then I would like to know what I should be expecting from them.” He seemed genuinely interested but he still had that, frankly disturbing, blank expression on his face. Perhaps he was just in shock that would certainly explain why he was suddenly just alright with this. That was unless he was honestly just alright with this. That option didn’t feel right though, she remembered receiving quite the talking to from Crutchie when Jack had apparently been moping around once when she had needed to leave without telling him. Keeping that in mind it seemed more likely that he was just muting his feelings.

Thoughts of them aside, she did still need to provide him with the information that would make it possible for him to be an efficient secret keeper. “No, at least I wouldn’t expect it to be so. I joined the resistance a few years before they eventually signed up and we haven’t really been in consistent contact. With this job it was hard to get messages out so the best I could manage was birthdays and some holidays from our home world. If they do show up looking for me it will be easy to tell them that I died. They hear from me so infrequently that I doubt they’ll be surprised.” 

It wasn’t until she actually spoke those words out loud that she realized just how alienated that she had become from the people who used to be in her life. When she was little, where her dad was still governor of her home planet and she had lived with her family it would never have occurred to her that there would be a day when she told someone that it would be easy for her bothers to just think that she was dead. It seemed like such a harsh thing to say no matter how true it was but she didn’t attempt to take it back. For all its cruelty saying that she was dead would be the easiest thing for both her brother and Jack. It would remove any hope that she would be returning for them and once Jack said it enough his own mind would just start to accept it as well. Besides there would eventually come a day when it would actually be the truth and they still wouldn’t know where to find her. Once she went undercover on this assignment Sarah Jacobs would be dead. 

“Isn’t that a little bit cruel?” His eyes remained blank even as he frowned at her. “I mean if I had any family I would at least like to let them know that I was still alive. Telling them that you’re dead when you aren’t will hurt them. Even if you haven’t really communicated with them you are still a family-” She couldn’t let him continue like that. She knew that next he would suggest that she record a video for them, some kind of in case of death speech but she wasn’t going to do that. She had already named them as the joint beneficiaries on her will and to add a video would just make the entire thing too cheesy. Besides, she’d promised herself no masks and she didn’t think that she would be able to hold it together for long enough to film a video.

“Jack I know more about my own family than you possible could.” Her words came out harsh but she had meant for them to be. He had one job here and he needed to do it. She couldn’t have Davey and Les go looking for her and she knew that they would if they had any reason to suspect that she was still alive. “All you have to do is confirm that I died. Once I go under the resistance will file all the needed paper work. My brothers will be told that I died in ship to ship combat and that my body was unsalvageable. They’ll receive my will and, should everything go perfectly, you will never even have to interact with them.”

“Not even at your funeral?” It seemed that making half joking and half serious comments was how Jack had decided to deal with this. Well that and completely closing down his emotions to become a robot. Neither struck her as healthy but then again who was she to judge. 

“No not even then. There won’t be any official funeral. Just a notification of death and as my supervising agent Pie Eater will handle that alone.” 

As far as Sarah was concerned that was the end of the conversation. She’d said everything that she needed to, at least as much as she needed to say to him. She had been planning to suggest that they go back to his room for just one night, as a goodbye, but now she knew that it would be unfair to do so. After all she would only leave once again before he was awake and she didn’t want to let herself indulge too much. If she woke up beside him once more then she might do something stupid like say she wold find a way to contact him after she was gone. No for the sake of a clean break it was best that she just walk away right now.

She stepped away from the railing to follow through on that train of thought, was half way to the ladder down from the catwalk before she heard Jack’s heavy footsteps following her and heard him call out. Despite the mantra in her head make a clean break, make a clean break, make a clean break she still turned around at the sound of his voice. Perhaps it would be less of a bad idea if he was the one to suggest that they go back to his room, perhaps…

“Can you at least tell me that they aren’t sending you in alone?” Not what she had been hoping for, not even close. Yet she understood why he had to ask the question, the key to any good op was to have a good team. A team meant that there needed to be more than one operative assigned to each mission. A team also meant that there would be more effort put into the planning and more eyes to catch any possible errors before they could get someone killed.

“Why? Are you planning on volunteering?” In the face of his still blank eyes her joke fell flat and she half expected him to say that he would volunteer in a complete monotone. He didn’t and she scrambled to keep talking. “No I’ll have my team with me. Snitch, Itey, Snoddy and Snipeshooter are all going under with me to back me up. They wouldn’t trust this to just one agent alone. Of course they’re giving me my team.” 

He nodded, that was all. There was no, ‘yes of course’ or other verbal acknowledgement. He didn’t even move from where he was leaning against the railing. Sarah half hoped that he wold interrupt again, ask some other questions or suggest heading to his bunk just so that it wouldn’t feel quite so final as she walked away from him but no such thing occurred. All the way down to the ladder and even part way down she could feel him watching her but he didn’t say another word.


	6. One Time That No-one Leaves

Sarah sat bolt upright in bed with a little gasp. Instinctively she reached out to her side to find Katherine then stretched out even further to touch Jack. The nightmares where a completely new thing for her. She hadn’t suffered from them in the past, when she had needed to do and see terrible things she had been able to handle it. Her mentor had taught her that she needed to share everything with her team and use them as her therapists, for an operative who was known for working particularly alone he seemed to have held teams in high regard.

But he was gone, Brian Denton, her mentor had died. She hadn’t been there to see it, hadn’t learned of it for several standard months after the fact but it had happened but it was a fact. He had gone undercover as a journalist, like she had done, and his cover had been blown in a most explosive manner. He had been doing his job, recruiting operatives and getting information, when he had run afoul of Katherine’s father. She had never even learned his real name, when she had been assigned to be trained by him he had already been given his lifelong assignment as journalist Brian Denton. 

It had not been his assigned mission to do anything about Joseph Pulitzer’s corrupt business dealings, especially not under the name of Brian Denton. Yet all of his attempts to gain the resistance a foothold in the system had been blocked by the iron wall that was Pulitzer’s political influence and power. So he had decided, all on his own, that he would put holes in that brick wall and collapse its very foundation. In short he had done the thing that he had warned her against so many times during her training and let things become too personal.

To destroy Pulitzer Brian had turned Katherine, his daughter and made her into his source. He had fed the resistance reports about his progress with her and sent most of the intel that she got him back up the line but he had started to use some of it himself. Brian Denton, his cover id, had been a reporter so he had also made Katherine into his official journalistic source. He had started to publish articles that revealed the truth of some of the things that Pulitzer had done to get his power and position. That included scandals that if he had personally been responsible for leaking to the press or he had assigned one of his people to create.

The sudden appearance of all that information had made Pulitzer suspicious and he had zoned in on Brian quickly. It was unclear when the politician had been made aware of the fact that the reporter he was after was a resistance operative, no one seemed to be entirely sure where he could have found that information or who could have made it available to him. Despite that mystery he had made full use of the information and in short order Brian had been tortured for information then killed in public execution as an example to his source. Pulitzer had just never considered the idea that Brian’s source was his own daughter and that in doing what he did he would drive her further away from him and closer to the resistance.

Due to the mystery surrounding what had happened when Pulitzer found out who Brian was Sarah and a few other operatives had been pulled out of assignments that where meant to be lifelong. Pie Eater had lobbied, successfully, to have her returned to the unit so that when they went to retrieve Brian’s sources they would have someone who knew how he operated on the away team. 

K. Plumber, real name Katherine Pulitzer, had been his operative on the inside of her father’s operations. When Brian had been killed she had sent out a distress call and so they had been sent in to retrieve her and to clean up any loose ends left in the area by Brian’s sudden death. By the end of the mission Sarah had found herself in a relationship with both Katherine and Jack.

Her clumsy reach had woken Katherine up and the other woman sat up more slowly, the moment that she seemed alert enough to put together who had woken her she molded into Sarah’s back with hands rubbing her back and head resting on her shoulder. “The same nightmare again Rah?” Her words where soft and sleep slurred but that sound of her nickname for Sarah relaxed her almost as much as her gentle massage. On Shylanel, the planet where Joseph was Grand Moff and where his daughter had lived, it was common practice to shorten a partners name to one syllable or a single sound of their name. The same could not be done for Jack, there just wasn’t much that could be done with that.  
“I wouldn’t know Cat, I don’t remember them.” Katherine only hummed in response and curled further into her back, she could be quite clingy in the mornings and usually it wasn’t a problem but it wasn’t practical to be sitting up and having the other woman leaning into her back. Thankfully she didn’t need to raise the issue to her lover, the brunette moved quickly from her back to the center of the bed once again.

The three of them sharing a bed made it crowded, at least they had stopped all attempted to squeeze into Jack’s bed. While the pilot tended to press himself as close to the wall as he could to sleep Katherine tended to latch on to someone and sleep pressed against them. That created a problem as well when Sarah was awake she had no issue with being entangled with other people but when she fell asleep she tended to push away. After the fourth time she had woken up falling to the floor they had decided to move into her room.  
It wasn’t that her bed was any bigger than Jack’s, in fact it was the exact same time but since she and Katherine where both operatives and assigned different rooms they could just drag Katherine’s bed into Sarah’s room and sleep in relative comfort. “Doesn’t matter if you remember them or not. You should still talk to someone about them. They’re getting more frequent.” She was more awake now than she had been a few moments ago and she gathered her limbs to sit cross-legged in the center of the bed. For his part Jack remained dead to the world, the pilot slept on his side with his back up against the wall.

“I am talking to people.” Sarah wished that Jack would hurry up and wake up even though she knew that the hope was in vein. The pilot had trained himself to sleep like the dead unless woken by the emergency alarm and even then he would only wake up if it was the alarm calling pilots to their ships. Since each station alarm had a different tone and sound that was a trick that many operatives had picked up, not every alarm needed everyone to respond and as such most people could sleep through most of the alarms. “I talk to you, I talk to Jack and I talk to my team. With the lot of you I have my issues under control.”

This wasn’t the first time that they had had this discussion in the early hours of the morning and as she had every other time Katherine reached up and ran her fingers through her hair to collect her bangs and drag them across the top of her head. “You know that I mean. A professional, not just your lovers or your coworkers. Friendly discussions, caring discussions do not have the same ability to read your subconscious as a discussion with someone who has been trained to help.” This conversation always went the same way and it was starting to feel like she was reading from a script. 

Sarah lay back down as she gave her usual reply. “Find me a doctor who has the clearance to hear all the things that I’ve done and I’ll give it a shot.” There had been a time when she actually tried to do so with no success. The resistance was a machine meant to bring freedom to people and stand up for the founding principles that the New Republic had forgotten. Unfortunately that lead to a regression back to the limited resources of the original rebellion and thus there was no money in which for them to pay a qualified therapist for their operatives. Besides back then the nightmares had stopped and she had been able to move forward with her life, surely she just had to wait it out this time and the same thing would occur.

Usually that was the end of the conversation but this time Katherine hesitated, her head tilted to the side and her dark hair trailing over her shoulder. “What about Joly?” The suggestion actually took her by surprise. She hardly even remembered that man. She knew that he had been a doctor assigned to the base during the aftermath of the ambush that had nearly destroyed the Newsies and Brooklyns. He hadn’t been around for very long, he’d been gone before she had come back, but the units’ had talked about him a little. Apparently he had been well liked but had only been a loner doctor. He had quickly been returned to his unit.

“Was he even a part of the resistance?” She wasn’t asking the question as some kind of obtuse rejection to seeing him, she honestly didn’t know. His unit had hung around the base as added security for about a month but they hadn’t really spoken to the Newsies or the Brooklyns. They had been running set up for an operation of their own and vanished soon after. Because they still needed Joly to look after people he had stuck around for an extra two standard months.

“I don’t know.” Katherine shrugged and a few more strands of her dark hair spilled forwards over her shoulder, there was little light in the room and her hair looked like liquid in one solid dark mass. “I never met him, Romeo was talking about him though and Jack said that he liked him. Considering he usually dislikes outsiders on principal and isn’t the biggest fan of doctors I took that as a golden recommendation.” She glanced over towards the pilot. “We can ask him if Joly is officially a part of the resistance or something else.”  
Sarah nearly stopped her from reaching out to wake him up, she knew that he needed his sleep and that he preferred to wake up on his own but since they were apparently going to have this conversation he would gain from it as well. Since she and Katherine both still had jobs to do there where nights when he slept alone and she hadn’t missed the fact that he still had nightmares if he slept in a confined room alone. Whenever he knew that they would be back by a certain date he stayed in her room but on other nights Crutchie had told them that he was still sleeping out in the on call bunks above the hanger. Perhaps speaking to a doctor would help him deal with some of his issues as well.

To her credit Katherine did try to wake him up gently, she actually tried tapping his nose and blowing in his ear to no avail. The odd methods of waking someone up that she used amused her and she found herself smiling when the other woman finally resorted to more conventional methods and shook his shoulder. Jack’s eyes where open and he sat up before she could shake him more than twice, for a second he was tensed on the verge of violence and she changed her earlier assessment. It might be that his nightmares didn’t stop when there were other people in bed with him. He relaxed before he could hurt anyone and confusion flooded his eyes. 

“What’s going on?” He glanced around “Did an alarm go off? Do we need to be up?” He looked about ready to crawl around Katherine and bolt from the bed but relaxed when she laid a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. 

“No Kel” Since his first name couldn’t really be shortened she had instead gone with his last name, the nickname seemed to have the same relaxing effect on him as it had on her just a few moment s before and she had to wonder why. There was no reason that one syllable spoken by Katherine should be able to relax them both so easily, perhaps it was the fact that their lover only ever used nicknames in a relaxed environment. One the job she always referred to them by their full names. 

Another reason did spring to mind. Katherine had a quality about her that made her more seem more trustworthy. Since she had joined Sarah’s teams of operatives she had personally seen her use that to recruit assets and just get what she needed out of other people. Despite the fact that she had seen those things she still found herself more relaxed with her lover by her side than she was at any other time. She felt much the same way about Jack but his presence didn’t relax her so much as it did give her piece of mind. If he was by her side then he wasn’t off risking his life someplace. 

“We’re just having a conversation, lie back down.” By all appearances the pilot was now too awake to just lie back down and get comfortable but at Katherine’s urging he at least tried to do so, he sprawled back down on his side with head propped up. “The doctor, Joly, is he a member of the resistance?”

Her question clearly threw Jack completely, he made no effort to hide the confusion on his face and in his voice. “The one who was assigned to us after the ambush?” Katherine nodded and he let out a yawn. “I think so. The crew he was with are some lone wolf rebel group from far out on the outer rim but they made a formal agreement with the resistance just before he was assigned to us. That was why we got him on loan. Why the sudden interest?” The fact that he didn’t even question why they were discussing a man they had never met so early in the morning was a sign of just how confused that he was. 

“Can you get in touch with him?” Sarah was content to just lie back and allow Katherine to pose the questions. The other woman had a smooth voice and she loved the slight hoarseness that touched it early in the morning. The same could be said for how Jack’s accent was only ever present in his voice early in the morning. In truth she just loved to hear her lovers speak.

Jack stared up at the ceiling for a second before eventually shrugging. “There’s a lot of official interference. He was only here for a few months before he got reassigned. His team…” he paused and she guessed that he was trying to remember the name. Usually she’d tease him about not remembering something like that but in this case she’d allow it. After all he had only had professional encountered one member of the team and at the time he hadn’t been using his official team designation. “Is a deep undercover unit. They connect rebellious groups on a number of different planets and smuggle in supplies so they have to keep communications to the outside secure.” Once again he paused and looked back over at them. “I have to ask, what’s with the sudden interest in Joly? You two never even met him.”

Katherine leapt up to the plate which was a relief because Sarah didn’t think that he was going to readily accept the idea that she would only go to therapy if he did. Thinking about it like that did make her feel a little petty but it was too late to go back on it now. They had already woken him up and Katherine was explaining. “We thought that it’s about time that the two of you go to a therapist and try to work out how to help with your nightmares.” They were both surprised when his response was to laugh at that.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The words forced themselves out as the chuckles subsided and he seemed to regain control of himself. “It’s just the fact that you’ve come to this conclusion at...” He strained his neck upwards to try to look over them the clock on the bedside table but didn’t seem to have any success as he continued with. “Some evil hour in the morning is hysterical. Especially since you seem to have thought it through to the point of asking about a specific doctor. Besides Joly is a medical doctor, not a therapist one.”  
Sarah allowed herself just a slight chuckle at that but it was enough for Katherine to decide to get revenge. The other woman swiped out with one hand to knock away the arm supporting Jack’s head and used the other to gently bat her over the ear. She responded by lunging upwards then dragging the other woman back down on to the bed, in a moment she had her pinned with limbs slung over her body and head resting on her shoulder. Jack took the cue to mirror the action on the other side. Once they had settled, both with heads resting on their lover’s shoulders and limbs all tanged and Katherine had stopped laughing at this mock struggle she spoke again.

“Fine, fine. Conversations done for now.” She was using her own hands to carefully reposition their limbs as she spoke. “But when we wake up and we have a free moment then we’re going to talk about this again. I know that operatives and pilots both don’t like to talk about real feelings but you guys need to discuss it with somebody to stop it from eating you up inside and giving you nightmares.”

“We talk to you about these th-” 

“No I already said that. Apparently since she isn’t a therapist she doesn’t count.”

“Huh.”

With that last syllable all conversation seemed to be through, at least for the moment. With their limbs arranged over her to her liking Katherine seemed inclined to go back to sleep and from Jack’s suddenly heavy breathing he appeared ready to do the same. Most mornings Sarah wouldn’t even try to go back to sleep, she’d already be on her feet and out in the training room. But today she was ill-inclined to move at all, instead she burrowed further into her lovers side and felt her arm shift over her shoulder to run down her spine. 

Since she had started sleeping with the two of them, more than just sleeping with the two of them. Since they had started on this relationship she found that some of her tendencies, like wanting to be out of bed in a moment and sleep as little as possible, had abated. She’d thought that it was a temporary thing, it had happened once or twice in the past when she entered into new relationships but it had persisted this time. At first she had resisted it, despite wanting to stay in bed with Katherine and Jack and actually feeling like maybe she could sleep another hour or two, she had forced herself up and into the training room.

Recently she’d decided to go the other way with in. Instead of forcing herself to get up when she woke up early she would just lie still and listen to the others breathing. The rhythmic sounds would soon lull her back into unconsciousness and she would wake with the two of them. It wasn’t like she was missing out on training time yet anyway, since Katherine had joined the team she had been mentoring her and that entailed booking a few hours in the training room a day to practice all forms of combat. The other woman was a quick learner, she could see why Brian had made her his CI and started her training off. 

She let her eyes close and just listened so that she could relax. Katherine’s arm down her back pulled her in just a little closer before easing its pressure against her. Jack’s leg draped over to brush up against hers and Sarah was comfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is hopefully just the first part a number of sat wars setting alternate universe musical fics. One of the mentioned characters in this is a clue as to which other musical is currently at the top of the list for adaption to this verse. Please leave a review. If anyone wants more information on an aspect of character I have some notes so just ask any questions in the comments.

**Author's Note:**

> Pie Eater is a Zankrei. A race of blue humanoid aliens with skin that can range through any shade of blue. Hair colours are silver, black and white. I do not own any of these characters or the setting but I do own the alien races.  
> Kiytans are another alien race.


End file.
